Being conventionally used as a bank card and/or a card for implementation of personal authentication in financial institutions and so on, there are a magnetic card made by forming a magnetic stripe on a plastic substrate surface, and a contact IC card in which an integrated circuit chip (IC chip) is embedded inside a plastic substrate and an IC terminal is placed on a surface of the plastic substrate. Then, writing and reading information data for such a magnetic card and a contact IC card is carried out by using a card reader equipped with a magnetic head and a IC contact.
Meanwhile, in recent years, there has appeared a non-contact card in which an IC chip and an antenna coil are embedded and writing and reading information data is carried out via the antenna coil by means of electromagnetic interaction. Such a non-contact IC card is provided with a memory capacity and a security level that are equivalent to what a contact IC card has. Furthermore, being compared to a magnetic card and the contact IC card with which data is sent and received while those cards are sliding (contacting), the non-contact IC card is excellent at operation performance (what a user has to do is only holding up the non-contact IC card) and maintainability (there exists no contacting part). Then, writing and reading information data for the non-contact IC card is carried out by a card reader that is equipped with an antenna for generating an electromagnetic wave.
Moreover, developed in recent years is an IC card reader provided with a hybrid function, with which all of the magnetic card, contact IC card, and non-contact IC card described above can be handled and processing for each card can be implemented (For example, refer to Patent Document 1). An IC card reader disclosed in Patent Document 1 includes; a magnetic head with which magnetic data is sent and received to/from a magnetic stripe of a magnetic card; an IC contact with which data is sent and received to/from an IC contact of a contact IC card; and a sending and receiving antenna with which data is sent and received to/from an antenna coil of a non-contact IC card.
On this occasion, in the view from a host apparatus such as an ATM; it is desirable in terms of control operation that there exists one and only device which handles various cards including a magnetic card, a contact IC card, a non-contact IC card, and so on. Furthermore, a device interface (for example, RS232C), which the host apparatus is equipped with, is limited in its number. Therefore, in the case of an IC card reader provided with a hybrid function, usually only a card reader for a magnetic card or a contact IC card is connected to the host apparatus, and then a control circuit for a non-contact IC card is additionally connected to the card reader.
FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing an electrical system structure of a conventional medium processing system.
As shown in FIG. 6, only an existing card reader 201 for a magnetic card or a contact IC card in an IC card reader 200 is connected to a host apparatus 100 with an RS232C interface. Then, a non-contact IC card reader function 202 (such as an antenna coil, a control circuit, and so on) is mounted onto (additionally connected to) the existing card reader 201.
Japanese Patent No. 3241254 (FIG. 1) relates to a conventional IC card reader.
Unfortunately, there exist problems described below in a conventional medium processing system.
A first point is that the non-contact IC card reader function 202 is able to carry out high-speed communication with a non-contact IC card (for example, a communication speed in the case is about 10 times faster than a communication speed of a case where the existing card reader 201 communicates with a contact IC card). Naturally it is desirable that a function of the high-speed communication is utilized. However, since the existing card reader 201 is connected to the host apparatus 100 via the RS232C interface (with a communication speed, for example, of 38,400 bps) in the conventional medium processing system, the non-contact IC card reader function 202 is able to access to the host apparatus 100 only through the existing card reader 201 (Refer to FIG. 6) so that an advantage of the high-speed communication cannot be utilized sufficiently.
Furthermore, when the non-contact IC card reader function 202, being for example as a separate circuit board, is additionally connected to the existing card reader 201, it is necessary to have some design specification change at a side of the existing card reader 201. However, it is not only extremely complicated but also unpractical to additionally connect such a function for taking into account some possible refurbishment required in the market (non-contact IC card reader function) to the existing card reader 201. Moreover, in a case of the existing card reader 201 that has already obtained for example an approval certification and so on, it becomes necessary to obtain a certification again due to the specification change and then such additional work is unpractical and furthermore it costs much.
At least an embodiment of the present invention is materialized in view of the problems described above, and at least an embodiment of the present invention provides a medium processing system that includes medium processing apparatuses, in which communication speeds for information recording media are different, and is able to take advantage of high-speed communication, and provides such a medium processing system and an intermediary medium processing apparatus that are practical and low-cost.